


Scritch Scratch

by ContraryBee



Series: GrimIchi Chronicles [2]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Grimmjow is a Big Cat, No Smut, Purring, cat behavior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:00:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26109820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ContraryBee/pseuds/ContraryBee
Summary: Around the three-week mark where Grimmjow had appeared in Ichigo’s shitty apartment and somewhat moved in, Ichigo realized he had adopted a feral cat.
Relationships: Grimmjow Jaegerjaques & Kurosaki Ichigo, Grimmjow Jaegerjaques/Kurosaki Ichigo
Series: GrimIchi Chronicles [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1807051
Comments: 13
Kudos: 401





	Scritch Scratch

Around the three-week mark where Grimmjow had appeared in Ichigo’s shitty apartment and somewhat moved in, Ichigo realized he had adopted a feral cat.

It just so happens, this feral cat was a grouchy, six foot tall, muscular, pain in the ass that caused more problems than he solved, but he was also just a gigantic fucking cute-ass _cat_ that Ichigo couldn’t really get mad at him for it.

Coming home after a long day at class, perhaps even a terrible shift at the coffee shop, and Ichigo would find Grimmjow blearily blinking his way from sleep on the couch, or leaving blue hairs in his bed, or making a ruckus in his shower, knocking over shampoo bottles if only for the enjoyment of listening to them bang to the shower bottom.

“Grimmjow, what do you want to eat?” Ichigo shouted, head in the fridge. He rustled around and found a carton of Chinese that actually didn’t smell too bad. “We have noodles leftover.”

“Fuck that, give me a nice juicy meaty steak. Or an adjuchas with a rodent type.” Grimmjow grunts, coming up behind Ichigo to sneer disapprovingly at the box of half eaten noodles.

“I can’t afford steak, man, and you know it.” Ichigo frowned, shaking the carton and realizing perhaps the noodles were older than he thought. They wouldn’t move. “And I can’t eat hollows, go hunt one yourself, killer.”

“Tch.” Grimmjow takes the noodle bin and turns it upside down. Ichigo turns a little green when the noodles don’t even have the audacity to fall out. “Why am I here if you can’t even feed me like a proper host.”

“I don’t know, Grimmjow, why _are_ you here?” Ichigo replies dryly. Fine, he’d make his own pasta. He had a bit of olive oil. Depressing dinner of bare fucking spaghetti coming right up. That’ll show him. “You still haven’t told me why you had to leave Hueco Mundo.”

Grimmjow’s face immediately closes up into something nearly thoughtful. It’s such an odd look on the arrancar’s face, with his great big jawbone on one cheek, that Ichigo stops to stare.

“Felt like coming, I guess.” Grimmjow answers, which is more than he’d given Ichigo for weeks.

There’s a beat of silence, while Ichigo boils water and stares at the bottom of the silver pot like it will tell him why he feels so odd.

“It’s not so bad, having you here.” He finally mutters, embarrassed.

“Gay.”

Annoyed, Ichigo dips his fingertips in the warmed water, whirls, and flicks the droplets into Grimmjow’s bare face. With a half-shout, Grimmjow bodily flinches away and scampers to the other side of the room, wiping his face on his forearm over and over and glowering at him.

Biting his lip as hard as he could not to burst into laughter, Ichigo turns back to his pasta. Serves you right.

xXx

“No, you _asshole_ ,” Ichigo seethes, both arms wrapped tightly around his pillow and glaring with all his sleepy might at the arrancar who perched over him.

“Why the fuck not?” Grimmjow grumbles, reaching out his fingers to tug at the innocent softness of Ichigo’s pillow.

“It’s 4 in the fucking morning, I’m not getting up yet.”

“You’re awake now.”

“’Cause you _woke me up_.” Ichigo rips his pillow further away, turning and shoving his head under, pressing his arms up over his head to seal his ears. “Go back to sleep before I _smother_ you.”

“Tch.”

Ichigo remains stiff under his pillow, eyes slammed shut as if he could fall back to sleep through sheer willpower. However, Grimmjow remains perched behind him on his bed, looming like a great big gargoyle of a cat. Ichigo can sense him staring. Sharp pupils wide and black in the dark, reflecting an unsettlingly hollow silver from the bare sliver of light from the window.

Eventually, it gets to be too much. He rips the pillow off his head, sits up, loathing every inch of that stupid face. Was that amusement in his eyes? Triumph in his grin?

“What do you want.”

“I’m hungry. And bored. Let’s go kill some things.” Grimmjow tells him, fingers flexing on his kneecaps where he squatted, bare feet dirtying up Ichigo’s poor innocent bed.

Ichigo ground his teeth for one long second. Feeling the early morning seep into the bags under his eyes, Ichigo calculated his levels of rage, exhaustion, and restlessness. At least it was Saturday. He didn’t work till the afternoon. And his palm itched for his sword hilt.

“Fine.” He bit out, then physically shoved Grimmjow off his bed. “Get out, I’ll be there in a second.”

“Hurry it up!” Grimmjow grunts back but does as bid, leaving in a slow plod as though he hadn’t just woken Ichigo up by poking his cheek over and over.

“I’m going to buy you a collar and a cat bowl one of these times.” Ichigo mumbles to himself as he gets ready, leaving his body behind. “See how you like that. You behave like my cat; you get treated like my cat.”

Grimmjow, just to be an asshole, scratches at the door.

xXx

Only once did Grimmjow bring back a dead hollow to show Ichigo. The truly impressive fit he threw really put Grimmjow off the whole thing, which was Ichigo’s intent, but then he had to deal with a sulking Grimmjow being an absolute nuisance.

“Why that hollow?” Ichigo asks one night, schoolbooks spread over the coffee table and Grimmjow lazily lying on his back on his rug, bobbing a foot in the air.

“Hm?”

“That hollow you dragged through my front door and left blood stains everywhere with. Why did you want to show me _that_ hollow.”

Grimmjow is silent for a bit, face stuck in that scowl he’d had for days. Thinking he wasn’t going to answer, Ichigo goes back to memorizing histology.

“Thought it was cool. Had bird wings.” Grimmjow grunts, rolling so his back faced Ichigo.

“You brought me a bird.” Ichigo repeats, eyes widening. “You brought me a _dead bird_.” A gift?

“So?” Grimmjow barks, getting up and pacing a few steps, then clambering out Ichigo’s kitchen window without another word. Why didn’t he ever use the front door? Should he install a kitty flap? He came and went on his own schedule, with no regard to Ichigo’s calendar.

Ichigo thought about it for a while, then the next time he killed a mildly interesting hollow, he made the executive choice to first cut off one of its back spines. It had a wicked curve to it, the bone hollowed out on the inside. He brought it back to the apartment and grandly set it on the coffee table, like some kind of macabre center piece.

Grimmjow raised an eyebrow at him, so Ichigo huffed and ignored him in retaliation.

Ichigo didn’t mention the next time he realized something was hung on his wall that look a bit like a pelt. It didn’t smell and was actually kind of artistic, so he let it be.

Eventually, he did have to pick and choose what to keep and what to give to Grimmjow to like, bury in the park or something.

“I’m not a dog, you bastard!”

“Well stop bringing them back then! I _know_ how to hunt; you don’t need to teach me!”

“I’m not teaching you to hunt!” Grimmjow looks almost offended, but Ichigo just raises his eyebrows at him. He screws his lips up tight, glowering back, because if he wasn’t doing the whole teaching to hunt thing, then was he actually bringing Ichigo gifts to show his appreciation?

Grimmjow would rather die choking on a hairball than admit it.

xXx

Half asleep still, Ichigo somehow knew that Grimmjow was laying sideways across his bed, legs thrown over Ichigo’s. The arrancar didn’t really sleep, but he did tend to meditate now and then. He was just the kind not to do it in an upright posture.

Warm but comfortable, Ichigo stretches out his arms and finds blue hair under his palm. It’s an odd combination of soft and scratchy, so he claws his fingers through it absently, just to feel. Grimmjow’s hair? Eh, who cares, what even are boundaries. Grimmjow had burst into his shower the other day and drew dirty things on the foggy mirror while Ichigo shouted at him buck naked, so Ichigo deserved this. He’d earned his due.

He scratched through Grimmjow’s hair, smoothing fingers over his forehead and finding the tips of his ears.

Slowly, Ichigo had to open his eyes, because something was vibrating the bed.

It sounded like a low rumble, like a snore but dampened and deepened, in and out, in and out. It felt like an engine, the way something in motion causes the vibrations of the entire entity that held it, the bed was absorbing most of it, the rest went into Ichigo.

God that was relaxing.

Ichigo blinked up at the black ceiling, sleep crawling about the edges of his awareness.

Grimmjow was _purring_.

His fingers still in their movements, and the purring stuttered, as Grimmjow turned his head to nudge his hand. He must be asleep. He must. Because the head nudge threw Ichigo’s hand up in the air and let it land on his forehead, covering his eyes. It was a vulnerable position, and just like the way a cat urges his human for pets.

Ichigo’s chest fills so tight he could barely breathe through it, and he starts scratching again, fingertips going a little numb at the texture but not willing to stop.

Grimmjow doesn’t make mention of any of this, but Ichigo gives in now and then when the murderous bastard is particularly sluggish, sticking his fingers in blue hair just to itch and scratch and turn Grimmjow into a lump of purrs.

This doesn’t always end successfully.

With a loud thump, Ichigo is thrown, ass over tea kettle, to land on the floor in Grimmjow’s pinned hold.

“The fuck, man, keep your nails to yourself!” Grimmjow barks, shoving his hand over Ichigo’s face.

“Fuck you, you like it!” Ichigo shouts around a massive palm, biting at him. He catches the meat of a thumb, and Grimmjow snarls.

There’s a shove and then Ichigo’s being kicked in the stomach, head captured by large hands.

“Quit murder kicking me!” Ichigo tries to kick back, rolling, trying to free himself. Grimmjow’s claws are poking into his skull now, ouch. Another jackknife kick to his spine. “You’re going to break my back!”

“You deserve it!”

xXx

Grimmjow snarls at him, and Ichigo snarls back. Leaving behind claw marks on the table, Grimmjow leaps up and away, exiting the apartment without a backward glance. At least he hadn’t clawed at Ichigo this time, that was hard to explain to his human coworkers, the long ass scratch marks up his arm.

Ichigo couldn’t quite remember what the fight was about, but he was left feeling icky and gross and frustrated.

“Bastard.” Ichigo mumbles hours later around his toothbrush. Grimmjow had not returned. “Grumpy asshole, unsocialized, feral kitten, fucker.”

Grimmjow doesn’t come back in the night either, Ichigo wakes to an empty bed and empty apartment.

Three days pass like this until Ichigo caves and goes out looking. There’s evidence of Grimmjow around the area, property damage and all, but no sign of the blue haired cat.

“Did you get hit by a car?” Ichigo asks himself over coffee one morning, frowning and upset, and upset because he knows why he’s frowning. “I’m never getting an outdoor cat.” He didn’t like not knowing what happened…if he was okay.

Of course he was okay. He was a fucking arrancar, one of the top espada, practically unkillable, he had nine lives.

But still, Ichigo left the kitchen window open.

Grimmjow slinks in when Ichigo’s preoccupied and is leaning stiffly against the wall when Ichigo turns around. Jumping, because he didn’t sense him come in, Ichigo takes him in visually, watching how the tension bleeds into bulking shoulders and flexing claws.

“Want some sandwiches?” Ichigo asks instead of demanding to know where he’s been.

“Tch. Tuna.”

xXx

Ishida, Orihime, and Chad sit stuffed into Ichigo’s couch, all three watching the way Grimmjow sat indolently on the only chair, legs over the arm and bulky arms crossed. Grimmjow glares at them all, tempted to snarl or jump at them just to see what would happen.

By the dark look on the quincy’s face, he wouldn’t get far without an arrow in his gullet.

“How _long_ has he been here, Kurosaki?” Ishida hisses fed up with Ichigo’s round about explanation.

“Like six months? I don’t know, I’m not keeping track. He hangs out, we kill hollows, we eat.” Ichigo explains, rolling his eyes.

“Fuck do you want?” Grimmjow grunts at the girl staring at him, baring his teeth. The big one shifts, making himself a threat and blue eyes pin him down.

“Um…” Orihime hesitantly smiles. “It’s good to see you, Grimmjow-san?” She says like it’s a question.

“It’s not good to see you. This shit box isn’t big enough for the lot of you. Leave.” Grimmjow fires back, running his nails over the hilt of Pantera, making an awful screeching sound. Despite the way his own ears quailed at the noise, he enjoys how the woman flinches.

“Grimm.” Ichigo’s deadpan voice interrupts his enjoyment, and there’s a shaking noise of a bottle with liquid in it, sloshing about.

Grimmjow is immediately up and out of the chair, eyes pinned to Ichigo and his squirt bottle. He hisses.

“Fuck you, Kurosaki, put that down!” He barks, trying not to look like he was putting as much of the kitchen in between them as he could.

“Stop being _bad_ , and I will.” Ichigo jostles it one more time, a threat, before very carefully putting the bottle down, nozzle pointed Grimmjow’s way.

“I hate you.”

“Good kitty.”

“I hate you, so fucking much, expect my claws in your eyeballs tonight when you’re sleeping.”

“You already do that, remember? I’m keeping this nearby, maybe it’ll stop you from waking me up at ass-o-clock.”

“You sleep too long!”

“You sleep more than I do!”

The others watch this exchange like a ping-pong match, before Ishida groans in defeat. Smiling, Orihime pats him on the knee, cheered immensely, and even Chad has a small lift to his lips.

“You’ve gone and tamed him, Kurosaki, how dare you.” Ishida takes his glasses off and rubs his nose.

“HOLD UP, I DID--”

“LIKE _HELL_ HE—”

xXx

Late one lazy afternoon, Ichigo sighs and closes his book. He can’t get any work done like this. Grimmjow skulks out of the bedroom, sleep rumpled and seemingly harmless. Ichigo realizes then, that this is his new normal, and it’s been normal for a long, long time.

Ichigo grunts in greeting, throwing his books on the ground and tugging out his phone to order some pizza.

“Pepperoni.” Grimmjow mumbles from above, as he leans over the back of the couch to watch what he’s doing. He stretches along the back of the couch, hulking and massive, but expertly balanced.

Ichigo orders, then flicks the TV on, laying back longwise on the couch. He puts his arms behind his head, and they watch the TV for a few minutes as it drones on about a cooking show or other.

Slowly Ichigo’s eyes drift closed, and he actively doesn’t open them when he feels Grimmjow shift and slowly seep his way like a vicious liquid down the back of the couch, slowly landing and putting his weight over Ichigo. Eventually he comes to a rest, face dug into orange hair and head resting on Ichigo’s bent arm.

He’s heavy, but not too badly and Ichigo can still breathe. He feels two large hands pressed between them, on his ribs and over his hip. They start flexing, alternating, fingers twitching against his skin and gripping at him, releasing and gripping by turns.

Ichigo bites his tongue, hard, but can’t help his lips stretching into a charmed arc. He’s _kneading_.

“We don’t talk about this.” Grimmjow’s voice is low and deadly in his ear, angry and normal, like they were talking face to face or over their swords. His breath tickles at him, and Ichigo shivers.

“Talk about what?”

“Tha’s right.”

They lose themselves into a comfortable doze while waiting for the pizza, and when the doorbell rings, Grimmjow makes a growling “murp” of protest when Ichigo drags his body out from beneath him. Ichigo sits in the small space Grimmjow makes with his curled body, and they eat their pizza without speaking. Putting on African Cats afterwards, Ichigo leans back into the warmth of Grimmjow’s body, feeling like he was leaning against the side of a curled tiger, a predator that decided he liked him.

He did adopt a cat.

The cat just happened to be shaped like a man.


End file.
